January 31, 2012

Wilson had to walk alongside the sledge to save his injured leg, but picking up their depot heartened them. In the afternoon Bowers collected his skis, having plodded 360 miles without them, since 31st December.

January 30, 2012

Another good march brought them nineteen miles, one cairn away from the next depot. "This is the bright side," Scott noted, "the reverse of the medal is serious. Wilson has strained a tendon in his leg; it has given pain all day and is swollen to-night. Of course, he is full of pluck over it, but I don't like the idea of such an accident here. To add to the trouble Evans has dislodged two finger-nails to-night; his hands are really bad, and to my surprise he shows signs of losing heart over it. He hasn't been cheerful since the accident." [1] The cut that Evans had gotten on his hand while shortening the sledges on 31st December, which had refused to heal, left him by now unable to help with camp work. He was also, despite being the biggest and heaviest of the party, on the same rations as the others, and his physical condition had deteriorated much more rapidly.

With the wind behind them, Lt. Evans's party further to the north picked up their next depot in the evening, after a march of 14 miles. "[After] taking our food we found a shortage of oil and have taken what we think will take us to the next depôt," Lashly noted. "There seems to have been some leakage in the one can, but how we could not account for that we have left a note telling Capt. Scott how we found it, but they will have sufficient to carry them on to the next depôt, but we all know the amount of oil allowed on the Journey is enough, but if any waste takes place it means extra precautions in the handling of it." [2]

Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 30 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1. Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.522, notes the deletion from the published journal, "which makes me much disappointed in him".[2] William Lashly, diary, 30 January, 1912, quoted by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in The Worst Journey in the World, ch.XII. At low temperatures, paraffin becomes a semi-solid and has a tendency to "creep", and thus leak out of a bung and evaporate. Amundsen had noticed this on the Northwest Passage expedition, and subsequently had tins specially soldered, while Scott's paraffin tins used leather washers.

January 29, 2012

After a march of nearly twenty miles, Wilson found that his leg was overstrained, and for several days he could only hobble alongside the sledge without pulling. "400 miles about to go," he wrote, "before meeting the dogs with ship's news." [1]

Amundsen

In the evening, Amundsen closed the door of the hut behind him and went down to the ship. "It was a heavy moment to leave Framheim," he wrote in his diary. "A more splendid or cosy winter quarters no one has had. When we departed, Lindstrøm had scoured it from top to bottom and it was shining like a new pin. We don't want to be accused of untidiness or dirt if anyone should happen to go there and look." [2]

"It was quite curious," he wrote later, "to see how several of the old veterans seemed at home again on the Fram’s deck. Wisting’s brave dog, the old Colonel, with his two adjutants, Suggen and Arne, at once took possession of the places where they had stood for so many a long day on the voyage south -- on the starboard side of the mainmast; the two twins, Mylius and Ring, Helmer Hanssen’s special favourites, began their games away in the corner of the fore-deck to port, as though nothing had happened. To look at those two merry rascals no one would have thought they had trotted at the head of the whole caravan both to and from the Pole. One solitary dog could be seen stalking about, lonely and reserved, in a continual uneasy search. This was the boss of Bjaaland’s team. He was unaffected by any advances; no one could take the place of his fallen comrade and friend, Frithjof, who had long ago found a grave in the stomachs of his companions many hundreds of miles across the Barrier." [3]

Fram cast off in a fog, leaving, as Bjaaland put it, "these regions and Framheim with all their splendour to anyone who wants them.... Farewell then, Framheim, your ice and snow and seal and crows and everything. You were temperamental and unpleasant and cold now and then but better than I expected." [4]

"The place that had been our residence for a year we left without a backwards glance," wrote Hassel. "The fog was too dense. But I doubt if any of us regretted that." [5]

January 28, 2012

"Little wind and heavy going in forenoon," Scott wrote. "We just ran out 8 miles in 5 hours and added another 8 in 3 hours 40 mins. in the afternoon with a good wind and better surface. It is very difficult to say if we are going up or down hill; the barometer is quite different from outward readings. We are 43 miles from the depot, with six days' food in hand." [1]

Lashly and Crean had rigged up a sail to help pull the sledge along. "The snow is still very soft and the sun very hot, it fairly scorches anyone's face," wrote Lashly. "We are almost black now and our hair is long and getting white through being exposed to the light, it gets bleached. I am glad to say it is cooler to-night, generally. We got over 12 1/2 miles again to-day. Mr. Evans is still very loose in his bowels. This, of course, hinders us, as we have had to stop several times. Only another few more Sundays and we hope to be safely housed at Hut Point, or Cape Evans. We have now been out 97 days." [2]

January 27, 2012

A patch of hard sastrugi on the forenoon march slowed their progress, Wilson and Scott pulling on ski and the others on foot. Temperatures were relatively warm at -16 to -14.3° F (-26.7 to -25.7 C) with a dry southerly breeze.

"Our sleeping-bags are slowly but surely getting wetter," wrote Scott, "and I'm afraid it will take a lot of this weather to put them right. However, we all sleep well enough in them, the hours allowed being now on the short side. We are slowly getting more hungry, and it would be an advantage to have a little more food, especially for lunch. If we get to the next depôt in a few marches (it is now less than 60 miles and we have a full week's food) we ought to be able to open out a little, but we can't look for a real feed till we get to the pony food depot. A long way to go, and, by Jove, this is tremendous labour." [1]

"Silas" Wright upon his return to Cape Evans, photographed by Herbert Ponting. [2]

"We reached Hut Point without any further difficulties on January 26, 1912," remembered Wright in his memoirs, "chalking up an average for the return of about 16 statute miles a day. How we looked forward to a bath at Cape Evans! But it was not to be until the following day since Ponting made a claim on our bodies to take part in a cinema record of our arrival up the icefoot at Cape Evans, filthy as we were, unshaven and with our hair uncut and with sledge firmly attached behind us. Art not for art sake, but for publicitys! [sic]" [3]

"Overate," he wrote in his diary a few days later. "Unhappy." [4]

Camped near the glacier that would later be named after Priestley, Campbell wrote in his diary, "After supper I went out with Priestley to collect, and the sun being hot I took off my vest and turning it inside out, put it on over my sweater, where it dried beautifully. I remarked to Priestley at the time that this ought to bring me luck, and sure enough, immediately afterwards I found a sandstone rock containing fossil wood, the best specimen as yet secured by the party." [5]

Amundsen

The Norwegians made time for a farewell dinner at Framheim. Lindstrøm produced champagne -- he had brought it from home, and slept with the bottles in his bed the whole winter to keep them from getting too cold. Amundsen gave another short speech, thanking everyone for work well done.

Because of the ice, the Fram was moored further out than she had been the year before, and it took hard shuttling with the dog teams for the next two days to load. They took only the 39 remaining dogs and the more valuable equipment.

January 26, 2012

"Temp. -17°. Height 9700, must be high barometer," wrote Scott. "Started late, 8.50 -- for no reason, as I called the hands rather early. We must have fewer delays. There was a good stiff breeze and plenty of drift, but the tracks held. To our old blizzard camp of the 7th we got on well, 7 miles. But beyond the camp we found the tracks completely wiped out. We searched for some time, then marched on a short way and lunched, the weather gradually clearing, though the wind holding. Knowing there were two cairns at four mile intervals, we had little anxiety till we picked up the first far on our right, then steering right by a stroke of fortune, and Bowers' sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the second far on the left. Evidently we made a bad course outward at this part. There is not a sign of our tracks between these cairns, but the last, marking our night camp of the 6th, No. 59, is in the belt of hard sastrugi, and I was comforted to see signs of the track reappearing as we camped. I hope to goodness we can follow it to-morrow. We marched 16 miles (geo.) to-day, but made good only 15.4." [1]

Further north, Atkinson's party reached Hut Point, after a journey of 35 days. "Scott was to have sent back instructions for the dog party with us," Cherry wrote in his diary, "but these have, it would seem, been forgotten." [2]

Amundsen

Fram at the ice-edge in the Bay of Whales, in an undated photograph. [3]

Having been earlier driven out to sea by wind and ice, the Fram had seen the signal of the polar party's arrival, a swallow-tailed naval ensign flying from Cape Man's Head, and had put in to the Bay of Whales, blasting her horn. "There was great enthusiasm," Nilsen said later. "The first man on board was the Chief; I was so certain he had reached the goal that I never asked him. Not till an hour later, when we had discussed all kinds of other things, did I enquire 'Well, of course you have been at the South Pole?'" [3]

Much of the news that Nilsen brought was of how Amundsen's "detour" was viewed in the press at home and in England. "A number of people seem to be indignant over our activities down here -- a breach of 'etiquette'?" Amundsen had fumed in his diary the night before. "Are these people mad? Is the question of the Pole exclusively confided to Scott for solution? I don't give a hang for these idiots. Nansen, as usual, with his cool, clear understanding, has cooled emotions. Oh well, people are idiotic." [4]

Nilsen also told of Fram's stay in Buenos Aires, and his visit with Amundsen's benefactor Don Pedro Christophersen, for whose help and support Amundsen was still deeply grateful. "It is to the intervention of this man," he wrote in his diary, "that the third Fram expedition owes its continued existence. At home, all doors were shut -- with the exception of the King and Fridtjof Nansen. May the confidence that they have shown me not be disappointed! I admire the King for his manly behaviour. Likewise the other two gentlemen. When everyone turned their backs on me, they came towards me. The King was not afraid to give a contribution to the South Polar expedition [sic], even if parliament -- or the majority -- wanted Fram to be ordered home. But -- it didn't go the way those gentlemen wanted. Just wait a bit, we'll soon have a talk. Perhaps you will be pleasanter the next time you hear from Fram." [5]

But he still had to get through before Scott with the news. "Time is precious, and we've got to reach civilization before anyone else."

He planned to start loading the ship almost immediately and sail on the 31st, heading to Hobart and thence to Buenos Aires, "where I have to obtain temporary assistance for the drift".

Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 26 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.[2] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, [26? January, 1912], quoted in his The Worst Journey in the World, ch.XIII.[3] Roald Amundsen Bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.[4] Thorvald Nilsen, "The Voyage of the Fram", in Roald Amundsen's The South Pole, ch.16.[4] Roald Amundsen, diary, 26 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.327-328.[5] Roald Amundsen, diary, 27 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Race for the South Pole : the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen (London : Continuum, c2010), p.263. Amundsen's slip of the pen is significant, as of course King Haakon's support was for what he was told would be an Arctic drift, whereas Amundsen had already known that he was heading south.

January 25, 2012

"Oates suffers from a very cold foot; Evans' fingers and nose are in a bad state, and to-night Wilson is suffering tortures from his eyes. Bowers and I are the only members of the party without troubles just at present. The weather still looks unsettled, and I fear a succession of blizzards at this time of year; the wind is strong from the south, and this afternoon has been very helpful with the full sail. Needless to say I shall sleep much better with our provision bag full again. The only real anxiety now is the finding of the Three Degree Depot. The tracks seem as good as ever so far, sometimes for 30 or 40 yards we lose them under drifts, but then they reappear quite clearly raised above the surface. If the light is good there is not the least difficulty in following. Blizzards are our bugbear, not only stopping our marches, but the cold damp air takes it out of us. Bowers got another rating sight to-night—it was wonderful how he managed to observe in such a horribly cold wind. He has been on ski to-day whilst Wilson walked by the sledge or pulled ahead of it."

Amundsen

Framheim, in an undated photograph. [2]

When they had set off at ten in the evening the night before, the weather, Amundsen wrote, was still "of the most unpleasant kind. Calm with thick snowfall and drift so that one could not see more than the tips of one's skis." [3] They lost the marked track, and when the weather cleared after an hour or so, there was not a flag in sight. Amundsen ordered a compass course.

"After 8 miles march, a large, dark object hove into sight -- 2 points off our course -- to the west. We struck out for it. It turned out to be one of our sledges, which we had left at the start on the 20th October 1911. Before we knew it, we had reached our point of departure. We saw nothing of Fram, but that was hardly to be wondered at because the whole inner part of the bay was covered with ice. Framheim, on the other hand, lay, as we had left it, bathed in the morning sun."

It was four o'clock in the morning, and the five men unhitched the dogs as quietly as they could and crept into the hut. "Good morning, my dear Lindstrøm," Amundsen said. "Have you any coffee for us?"

Wisting, who described this scene years later, said "It would be very difficult for me to describe the various phizzes that emerged from their respective bunks and stared at us -- they had to be seen." [4]

"Good God, is it you?" was all that Lindstrøm could say at first, for the polar party had not been expected for another ten days. "Get up boys," he called out to the others, "it's the first cuckoo of spring."

"Roald came up to me, and shook my hand," Stubberud recalled, "I didn't ask about anything." [5] Somebody, Wisting wrote, finally put the question: "'Have you been there?' 'Yes, we've been there,' answered Roald Amundsen, and then there was a hullabaloo. Soon after, we were all seated round the table and savoured Lindstrøm's hot cakes and heavenly coffee. How good a cup of coffee can really taste one only realises when, like us, one has had to go without so long." [6] (For three months, the polar party had had nothing but hot chocolate.)

Hanssen wrote later, "The gathering round the breakfast table at Framheim after the end of the trip belongs to the moments in one's life one never forgets." [7]

After a short speech from Amundsen -- "We haven't got much to tell in the way of privation. The whole thing went like a dream" -- they finished off, Bjaaland said, "[with] a really good schnapps." [8]

January 24, 2012

"Things beginning to look a little serious," wrote Scott. A strong wind developed into a blizzard, and they struggled to put up the tent. "This is the second full gale since we left the Pole. I don't like the look of it. Is the weather breaking up? If so, God help us, with the tremendous summit journey and scant food. Wilson and Bowers are my standby. I don't like the easy way in which Oates and Evans get frostbitten." [1]

They had managed 7 miles for the day, and were 7 miles from their depot. [2]

"Evans has got his fingers all blistered with frost-bites," Bowers wrote in his diary, "otherwise we are all well, but thinning, and in spite of our good rations get hungrier daily. I sometimes spend much thought on the march with plans for making a pig of myself on the first opportunity. As that will be after a further march of 700 miles they are a bit premature." [3]

Amundsen

The going suddenly better, "the dogs flew as never before," Amundsen wrote. But as they made camp, "the Sou'Wester broke out with drift and other abomination." [4]

Within hours of Framheim, they had covered 21 miles. They had lightened their loads so much in order to make good time that, Bjaaland noted, "We have almost no food, a few biscuits and chocolate." [5]

Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 24 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.[2] Roland Huntford notes here that Scott's inability to continue in this gale, which was a force 8 from the SSE, illustrates how the compasses used by the Norwegians and the British differed crucially. "Amundsen's ship's models, fixed on the sledges, allowed travel in any conditions. Scott only had pocket compasses and portable sundials, both of which assumed good visibility to take the necessary bearings.... In the [man-hauling] traces, it was well-nigh impossible to navigate without periodic halts to take compass bearings, and [without] marks in the terrain by which to steer." The Norwegians, however, could keep going in a similar gale, such as the one on 1st/2nd December, even though at that point it was in fact a head wind for them. "Keeping a course in poor visibility needed someone to follow on behind and call out directions.... [Consequently, Scott] was stopped by a following wind, which otherwise ought to have helped him along" (Race for the South Pole, p.259).[3] H.R. Bowers, diary, 24 January, 1912, quoted by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in The Worst Journey in the World, ch.12.[4] Roald Amundsen, diary, 25 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.508.[5] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 25 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Race for the South Pole : the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen (London : Continuum, c2010), p.260.

January 23, 2012

"We came along at a great rate and should have got within an easy march of our depot," Scott wrote, "had not Wilson suddenly discovered that Evans' nose was frostbitten -- it was white and hard. We thought it best to camp at 6.45.... There is no doubt Evans is a good deal run down -- his fingers are badly blistered and his nose is rather seriously congested with frequent frost bites. He is very much annoyed with himself, which is not a good sign. I think Wilson, Bowers and I are as fit as possible under the circumstances. Oates gets cold feet. One way and another, I shall be glad to get off the summit!... The weather seems to be breaking up. Pray God we have something of a track to follow to the Three Degree Depôt." [1]

January 22, 2012

"I think about the most tiring march we have had," wrote Scott, "solid pulling the whole way, in spite of the light sledge and some little helping wind at first." [1]

They were almost at 89°, he noted, "within 2 1/2 miles of the 64th camp cairn, 30 miles from our depot, and with 5 days' food in hand. Ski boots are beginning to show signs of wear; I trust we shall have no giving out of ski or boots, since there are yet so many miles to go. I thought we were climbing to-day, but the barometer gives no change."

After starting that morning, Lashly wrote near the foot of the Beardmore, "we soon got round the corner from the Granite Pillars to between the mainland and Mt. Hope, on rising up on the slope between the mountain and the mainland, as soon as we sighted the Barrier, Crean let go one huge yell enough to frighten the ponies out of their graves of snow, and no more Beardmore for me after this." [2]

"We have now 360 miles to travel geographically to get to Hut Point. Mr. Evans complained to me while outside the tent that he had a stiffness at the back of his legs behind the knees. I asked him what he thought it was, and he said could not account for it, so if he dont soon get rid of it I am to have a look and see if anything is the matter with him, as I know from what I have seen and been told before the symptoms of scurvy is pains and swelling behind the knee round the ankle and loosening of the teeth, ulcerated gums. To-night I watched to see his gums, and I am convinced he is on the point of something anyhow, and this I have spoken to Crean about, but he dont seem to realise it. But I have asked him to wait developments for a time. It seems we are in for more trouble now, but lets hope for the best."

Amundsen

Soft snow with little glide made the going hard for both skiers and dogs. "Ha ha," Bjaaland wrote with not a little glee. "Those fellows who thought they would be pulled 20 m will just have to traipse to Framheim." [3] They nevertheless managed to do their thirty miles a day, almost in sight of home.

January 21, 2012

A thick blizzard in the morning delayed the start until well after lunch, and they managed only 5 1/2 miles. They were at 10,010 ft. (3051 m), with temperatures from -18° to -11 (-28 to -24 C). "We are going to have a pretty hard time this next 100 miles I expect," wrote Scott. "If it was difficult to drag downhill over this belt, it will probably be a good deal more difficult to drag up. Luckily the cracks are fairly distinct, though we only see our cairns when less than a mile away; 45 miles to the next depot and 6 days' food in hand -- then pick up 7 days' food (T. -22°) and 90 miles to go to the 'Three Degree' Depot." [1]

After starting off at midnight, they reached their 80° depot late in the morning. There was a report from Prestrud that they had been there 13th November [i.e. 12th], and that all was well. "Thus," wrote Amundsen, "we have a realistic hope of being able to complete the entire west coast of K.E. VII according to our observations." [3]

Since the Eastern Party's visit, Amundsen found, the uppermost box of biscuit on the depot, which being painted black had absorbed enough sunlight to split open from the heat, was ruined, but everything else was in order, and in fact they now had so much supplies that they left a sledge case of biscuit, about 25 kg of chocolate, and a few bags of dried milk, taking only 12 pieces of pemmican for the men, and 40 seal steaks.

January 20, 2012

Before the polar party had left Framheim, Prestrud had remarked that it didn't really matter whether the Norwegians got to the Pole before or after Scott. Amundsen, Hassel remembered, had "taken Prestrud to task several times and reproached him severely." Amundsen's thoughts apparently returned to it now. "He was at it again this evening," Hassel wrote in his diary. "He would not have wanted to be Number Two for all the tea in China." [2]

Notes:[1] Roald Amundsen Bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.[2] Sverre Hassel, "return-journey diary" [date not given], quoted by Tor Bomann-Larsen in Roald Amundsen (Stroud, Gloucestershire : Sutton, c2006, c1995), p.109. Most of this return-journey period is for some reason not included in the transcription of Hassel's diary published by Vågemot Miniforlag in 2007.

January 19, 2012

Picking up a Norwegian cairn and their own tracks, the Polar party soon came to the black flag they had seen three days earlier; they took it now as a yard for their sail. "So that is the last of the Norwegians for the present," Scott wrote rather grimly. [1]

They had seven days' food with them, with a further four days' worth cached at their final depot of 15th January, and a week's depoted on the 10th. Their outward journey had taken them sixteen days.

Lashly, outside the hut at Cape Evans, photographed by Debenham in 1912. [2]

With Lt. Evans suffering badly from snow-blindness, Lashly was now leading the party, through a maze of ghastly pressure ice and crevasses ("Dont want many days like this," he had written on the 17th). At the Mid-Glacier depot, they put everything in order and started off for the next one, at the foot of the Beardmore. "I picked some rock to-day which I intend to try and get back with, as it is the only chance we have had of getting any up to the present, and it seemed a funny thing: the rock I got some pieces of looked as if someone before me had been chipping some off. I wonder if it was the Doctor's party [Atkinson's], but we could not see any trace of their sledge, but we could account for that, as it was all blue ice and not likely to leave any marks behind. After travelling for some distance we got on the same ridge as we ran along on the outward Journey and passed what we took to be the Doctor's Xmas Camp. We had not gone far past before we got into soft snow, so we decided to camp for lunch.... Last night we left a note for Capt. Scott, but did not say much about our difficulties just above the Cloudmaker, as it would be better to tell him when we see him." [3]

January 18, 2012

Having decided now that they had come too far, they set off back in a southeasterly direction for a little over three miles.

The sharp-eyed Bowers soon saw the Norwegian tent about two miles off, with a list inside of the five men who had made up the Polar party: "Roald Amundsen, Olav Olavson Bjaaland, Hilmer Hanssen [sic], Sverre H. Hassel, Oscar Wisting, 16 Dec. 1911. The tent is fine," Scott admitted, "a small compact affair supported by a single bamboo. A note from Amundsen, which I keep, asks me to forward a letter to King Haakon!" [1]

Scott, Oates, Wilson, and Evans at the Norwegians' tent. [2]

"Dear Captain Scott," Amundsen's note ran, "As you are probably the first to reach this area after us, I will ask you kindly to forward this letter to King Haakon VII. If you can use any of the articles left in the tent please do not hesitate to do so. With kind regards I wish you a safe return. Yours truly, Roald Amundsen." [3] "I am puzzled at the object," Scott wrote, in a remark edited out of his journals before publication. [4]

Wilson listed the "considerable amount of gear" the Norwegians had left in the tent: "half reindeer sleeping-bags, sleeping-socks, reinskin trousers [sic] 2 pair, a sextant, and artif[icial] horizon, a hypsometer with all the thermoms broken, etc. I took away the spirit-lamp of it, which I have wanted for sterilizing and making disinfectant lotions of snow." [5] Bowers was in fact glad to get a pair of reindeer mitts to replace the dogskin ones he had lost a few days earlier.

While Bowers photographed and Wilson sketched, Scott wrote a note to leave in the tent saying that they had been there, and went on another six miles. "We built a cairn, put up our poor slighted Union Jack, and photographed ourselves -- mighty cold work all of it." [6]

Scott and his men: from left, Wilson, Bowers and Evans (sitting), Scott, Oates. Bowers took most of the photographs at the Pole, here with a string (in his right hand) to the shutter release. [7]

A less well-known photograph, this time with Wilson pulling the shutter-release. From left, Wilson, Scott, Evans, Oates, and Bowers. [8]

Finding another of Amundsen's black flags about half a mile away, with the note in English, "The Norwegian Polheim is situated in 89 deg. 58' SE by E. (comp.) 8 Miles. 15 Decbr, 1911, Roald Amundsen" [9], they took it for the Norwegian Pole. (It was in fact the left-hand flag used to box the Pole.)

"There is no doubt that our predecessors have made thoroughly sure of their mark and fully carried out their programme," wrote Scott. "I think the Pole is about 9500 feet in height; this is remarkable, considering that in Lat. 88° we were about 10,500. We carried the Union Jack about 3/4 of a mile north with us and left it on a piece of stick as near as we could fix it. I fancy the Norwegians arrived at the Pole on the 15th Dec. and left on the 17th, ahead of a date quoted by me in London as ideal, viz. Dec. 22. It looks as though the Norwegian party expected colder weather on the summit than they got; it could scarcely be otherwise from Shackleton's account. Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must face our 800 miles of solid dragging -- and good-bye to most of the daydreams!" [11]

Amundsen

On the first clear day they had had for a while, and having had poor visibility on the three previous visits to the area, the Norwegians were able to see, Bjaaland noted, "several rock and snowclad mountains which seemed to run in a N.E. direction ... 30 miles off." [12] Amundsen, however, conscious of the need to get home first with the news, refused to investigate. "I have contented myself," he wrote calmly later, "with giving the name of Carmen Land to the land between 86° and 84°, and have called the rest 'Appearance of Land.' It will be a profitable task for an explorer to investigate this district more closely." [13]

At the time, however, his anxiety made him short-tempered. "Hanssen has fallen into disgrace," Hassel noted in his diary. "He allowed himself to disagree with His Majesty Amundsen regarding Else [one of the dogs] which Hanssen insisted smelled, but Amundsen could not smell anything. For the time being they are not talking." [14]

January 17, 2012

"We started at 7.30," Scott wrote, "none of us having slept much after the shock of our discovery. We followed the Norwegian sledge tracks for some way; as far as we make out there are only two men." [1]

After about three miles, they decided that the tracks were heading too far to the west, and struck off on their own, with a force 4 to 6 wind in their faces and a temperature of -22°, the coldest march Wilson could remember. Evans' hands were now so badly frostbitten that they had to stop early for lunch. "It was a very bitter day," wrote Wilson. "Sun was out now and again, and observations taken .... The weather was not clear, the air was full of crystals driving towards us as we came south, and making the horizon grey and thick and hazy." [2]

At about 6.30 in the evening, they made camp.

"The POLE," Scott wrote dismally. "Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected. We have had a horrible day -- add to our disappointment a head wind 4 to 5, with a temperature -22°.... [There] is very little that is different from the awful monotony of past days. Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority." [3]

"We could see no sign of cairn or flag," Wilson wrote, "and from Amundsen's direction of tracks this morning he has probably hit a point about 3 miles off. We hope for clear weather to-morrow, but in any case are all agreed that he can claim prior right to the Pole itself. He has beaten us in so far as he made a race of it. We have done what we came for all the same and as our programme was made out."

"What a place to strive so hard to reach," wrote Bowers. "It is sad that we have been forestalled by the Norwegians but I am glad that we have done it by good British manhauling." [4]

"Well, it is something to have got here," Scott finished, "and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. We have had a fat Polar hoosh in spite of our chagrin, and feel comfortable inside -- added a small stick of chocolate and the queer taste of a cigarette brought by Wilson. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle to get the news through first. I wonder if we can do it." [5]

Amundsen

"Skiing brilliant," Amundsen wrote. "Grainy snow. Hard upper crust, which the skis float over. Rather heavy for the dogs, as they break through." The packing-case markers stood out clearly, with almost no drift. "Pitched our tent at 81° 30' S lat. It was 30 nautical miles today." [6]

January 16, 2012

Wilson's sketch of one of Amundsen's markers, 16th January, 1912. This is Flag 1, of the Norwegians' evening camp on 13th December, near Scott's Camp 68. [1]

"The worst has happened, or nearly the worst," wrote Scott. "We marched well in the morning and covered 7 1/2 miles.... [We] started off in high spirits in the afternoon, feeling that to-morrow would see us at our destination. About the second hour of the march Bowers' sharp eyes detected what he thought was a cairn; he was uneasy about it, but argued that it must be a sastrugus. Half an hour later he detected a black speck ahead." [2]

"The flag was of black bunting tied with string to a fore-and-after which had evidently been taken off a finished-up sledge," noted Wilson, who would sketch another of the Norwegians' markers a few days later. "The age of the tracks was hard to guess but probably a couple of weeks -- or three or more. The flag was fairly well frayed at the edges. We camped here and examined the tracks and discussed things." [3]

"We're not a very happy party tonight," Oates wrote. "Scott is taking his defeat much better than I expected.... Amundsen -- I must say that man must have his head screwed on right."[4]

"It is a terrible disappointment, and I am very sorry for my loyal companions," wrote Scott. "Many thoughts come and much discussion have we had. To-morrow we must march on to the Pole and then hasten home with all the speed we can compass. All the day dreams must go; it will be a wearisome return. We are descending in altitude -- certainly also the Norwegians found an easy way up."

"I am awfully sorry for Captain Scott," Bowers wrote, "who has taken the blow very well indeed." [5]

Two days out from the Upper Glacier Depot at Mt. Darwin, Lashly wrote, "We are under the impression we are slightly out of our proper course, but Mr. Evans thinks we cant be very far out either way, and Crean and I are of the same opinion according to the marks on the land. Anyhow we hope to get out of it in the morning and make the Cloudmaker Depôt [the Middle Glacier depot at 84°33'] by night. We shall then feel safe, but the weather dont look over promising again to-night, I am thinking. So far we have not had to stop for weather. We have wondered if the Pole Party have been as lucky with the weather as we have. They ought by now to be homeward bound." [6]

Amundsen

The Norwegians reached their depot at 82°, the southernmost of their depots laid the previous autumn. "We had a special meal," Amundsen wrote, "to celebrate our arrival at civilisation's furthermost outpost in the South. Wisting has to be cook on such occasions. He plied us with a mixture of pemmican and seal steak. For dessert: chocolate pudding." [7]

The weather continued poor, with snowstorms, gales, drift, and fog, but they were now on their line of flags home. They were moving easily, despite the weather, between cairns, whose original four days' distance from each other was now down to two or three. The dogs had been put on double rations of pemmican, seal meat, and biscuits, and even chocolate as well towards the end, to lighten the loads.

Three members of the Japanese Antarctic Expedition in the Bay of Whales, January 1912. [8]

That day, Nilsen wrote aboard the Fram, "we were a little surprised to see a vessel come in ... finally we saw the Japanese flag. I had no idea that the expedition was on the way again." [9]

This was the Japanese Antarctic Expedition under Nobu Shirase. The ship had not reached the ice pack until late February, too late in the season to make land, and had returned to Australia before making a second attempt.

Their aim, Nilsen wrote, "was not (?) the Pole. In all, they had 25 (27?) men on board, 2 Ainus to drive their dogs, of which they had 27. They mostly eat vegetables, as far as I understand.... Together with Prestrud, I went on board Kainan Maru. It is a small, extremely dirty vessel of about 200 tons. Everything seems to be very disorganized. A seal lay half-dead on the ice; they only stood around and laughed at it. If we had had some firearms with us, we could have put it out of its misery.... [They] are really quite wild. We spoke 'English' with them."

“With an invitation to come again next day," Prestrud wrote later, "and permission to take some photographs, we returned to the Fram; but nothing came of the projected second visit to our Japanese friends. Both ships put out to sea in a gale that sprang up during the night, and before we had another opportunity of going on board the Kainan Maru the southern party had returned.” [10]

January 15, 2012

"My pemmican," Oates wrote in his diary, "must have disagreed with me at breakfast, for coming along I felt very depressed and homesick." [1]

At lunch they made their last depot at 89° 37' S, and pressed on.They had seen no trace of Amundsen, having taken it for granted that the Norwegians would follow the known route up the Beardmore. "It ought to be a certain thing now," wrote Scott, "and the only appalling possibility the sight of the Norwegian flag forestalling ours." [2]

Atkinson's returning party arrived at One Ton in the evening. At the depots all along the way, they had been finding "rather despondent" notes from Meares, reporting thick weather and short rations. He had killed one dog along the way, and taken a portion of biscuit and butter from the units in order to make it to the next depots. "The dogs had the ponies on which to feed," Cherry wrote later, "to make up the deficiency of man-food we went one biscuit a day short when going up the Beardmore: but the dogs went back slower than was estimated and his provisions were insufficient. It was evident that the dog-teams would arrive too late and be too done to take out the food which had still to be sledged to One Ton for the three parties returning from the plateau." [3]

"Judge therefore our joy when we reached One Ton ... to find three of the five XS rations which were necessary for the three parties. A man-hauling party consisting of Day, Nelson, Hooper and Clissold had brought out this food; they left a note saying the crevasses near Corner Camp were bad and open. Day and Hooper had reached Cape Evans from the Barrier on December 21: they started out again on this depôt-laying trip on December 26."

The Terra Nova was unable to collect the Second Western Geological Party because of ice.

Amundsen

Since they were now into a routine of a 15- to 20-mile run then eight hours' camp regardless of the time of day, they arrived at 82° 30' S at 1:30 in the morning, after 5 1/2 hours' "splendid skiing". [4] The temperatures of around -10° (-23 C) were so comparatively warm for the conditions that Amundsen found it "baking hot" in the tent.

January 14, 2012

"Again we noticed the cold," Scott wrote, "at lunch to-day (Obs.: Lat. 89° 20' 53'' S.) all our feet were cold, but this was mainly due to the bald state of our finnesko.... Oates seems to be feeling the cold and fatigue more than the rest of us, but we are all very fit. It is a critical time, but we ought to pull through. The barometer has fallen very considerably and we cannot tell whether due to ascent of plateau or change of weather. Oh! for a few fine days! So close it seems and only the weather to baulk us." [1]

Lt. Evans, Crean, and Lashly arrived at the Upper Glacier depot at the top of the Beardmore. "We had just enough now for our meal; this is cutting it a bit fine," wrote Lashly. "We have now taken our 3 1/2 days' allowance, which has got to take us another 57 miles to the Cloudmaker [Middle Glacier] Depôt. This we shall do if we all keep as fit as we seem just now. We left a note at the depôt to inform the Captain of our safe arrival, wishing them the best of a journey home. We are quite cheerful here to-night, after having put things right at the depôt, where we found the sugar exposed to the sun; it had commenced to melt, but we put everything alright before we left, and picked up our crampons and got away as soon as we could. We know there is not much time to spare." [2]

January 13, 2012

"It is wearisome work this tugging and straining to advance a light sledge," Scott wrote. "We should be in a poor way without our ski, though Bowers manages to struggle through the soft snow without tiring his short legs." [1]

On their way back to Cape Evans, Lashly wrote, "This has been a very bad day for us, what with ice-falls and crevasses." They had left their crampons at Mt. Darwin on the way out, and Crean had lost his ski pole down a crevass the day before. "We feel all full up to-night. The strain is tremendous some days. We are camped, but not at the depôt, but we hope to pick it up some time to-morrow. We shall be glad to get off the Summit, as the temperature is very low. We expected the party would have reached the Pole yesterday, providing they had anything of luck." [2]

Amundsen

Bad weather -- snowstorms, gales, fog -- meant that the Norwegians were essentially feeling their way from one cairn to the next, but they made twenty to thirty miles a day, at a speed of about three miles per hour. The dogs were put on double rations of pemmican, seal meat, biscuit, even chocolate, in order to lighten the loads, as the depots were by now superfluous.

January 12, 2012

A start in soft snow made a difficult march, wrote Scott, with the first two hours "terribly slow". After lunch, cloud cover and a cool wind helped to firm up the surfaces, and made the going briefly easier, to Scott's relief. "I had got to fear that we were weakening badly in our pulling; those few minutes showed me that we only want a good surface to get along as merrily as of old. With the surface as it is, one gets horribly sick of the monotony and can easily imagine oneself getting played out, were it not that at the lunch and night camps one so quickly forgets all one's troubles and bucks up for a fresh effort. It is an effort to keep up the double figures, but if we can do so for another four marches we ought to get through. It is going to be a close thing." [1]

"At camping to-night everyone was chilled and we guessed a cold snap, but to our surprise the actual temperature was higher than last night, when we could dawdle in the sun. It is most unaccountable why we should suddenly feel the cold in this manner; partly the exhaustion of the march, but partly some damp quality in the air, I think."

January 11, 2012

Cloud and snow crystals with a light breeze made the going "agonising," wrote Scott. "I never had such pulling; all the time the sledge rasps and creaks. We have covered 6 miles, but at fearful cost to ourselves." [1]

They were now 74 miles from the Pole. "Can we keep this up for seven days? It takes it out of us like anything. None of us ever had such hard work before.... Our chance still holds good if we can put the work in, but it's a terribly trying time."

Behind them, "a bliz" and the resulting drift made the going difficult for Lt. Evans's party for a stretch of days, but they pushed on regardless. "Things are a bit better to-day," Lashly wrote. "Could see the land alright and where to steer for. It is so nice to have something to look at, but I am thinking we shall all have our work cut out to reach the depôt before our provisions run short. I am deducting a small portion each meal so that we shall not have to go without altogether if we don't bring up at the proper time. Have done about 14 miles." [2]

Amundsen

Good skiing back on the Barrier made for an easy day's run.

Bjaaland, encouraged perhaps by the sight of the skua the day before, totted up the distances to go. "Slept for seven hours, then out to run 15 m[iles] until we reach 82° then six hours' sleep until the 80th degree is reached, then 20 m until we arrive at Framheim." [3]

January 10, 2012

"T. -11°. Last depot 88° 29' S.; 159° 33' E.; Var. 180°. Terrible hard march in the morning," wrote Scott, "only covered 5.1 miles (geo.). Decided to leave depot at lunch camp. Built cairn and left one week's food together with sundry articles of clothing. We are down as close as we can go in the latter. We go forward with eighteen days' food. Yesterday I should have said certain to see us through, but now the surface is beyond words, and if it continues we shall have the greatest difficulty to keep our march long enough." [1]

Amundsen

Antarctic skua, February/March 2008. Photo by Mirko Thiessen. [2]

Amundsen, back on familiar ground, grew aware again of the race between himself and the British, and became impatient and testy. "[He] tolerates no opposition," Bjaaland wrote. "Sharp dispute over my goggles. Is he annoyed that I'm not using the Roaldish snow goggles?" [3] Bjaaland had made a pair based on the Eskimo design with slits, whereas Amundsen preferred glasses with tinted lenses.

Amundsen decided to sprint, running fifteen or twenty miles, camping for eight hours, going on again, regardless of day or night. They saw the last of the mountains, "a wonderful sight," Bjaaland said, "like a home of the trolls, glittering with silver and crystal" -- and two skuas, the first living creatures they had seen for over two months. "Good day, good day, dear skua-crow," wrote Bjaaland. "How are you doing? .... You go back to Lindstrøm and tell him we'll be there in 20 days and clean up his hot cakes, beef and fruit, even if it's green plums." [4]

Fourteen miles out from Framheim, Prestrud noticed Johansen peering intently out to sea. "On my asking him what in the world he was looking at," Prestrud recalled, "he replied 'I could almost swear it was a ship, but of course it's only a wretched iceberg.' We were just agreed upon this, when suddenly Johansen stopped short and began a hurried search for his long glass. 'Are you going to look at the Fram?' I asked ironically. 'Yes, I am,' he said; and while he turned the telescope upon the doubtful object far out in Ross Sea, we two stood waiting for a few endless seconds. 'It's the Fram sure enough, as large as life!' was the welcome announcement that broke our suspense. I glanced at Stubberud and saw his face expanding into its most amiable smile." [5]

Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 10 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.[2] Wikimedia Commons. The photograph used here is labelled Stercorarius chilensis; see Wikipedia on the "Brown skua" and e.g. Greg Lasley's page on the "Brown Skua (Catharacta antarctica)" for discussions of the taxonomy of Antarctic skuas.[3] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 11 January 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.506.[4] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 11 January 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.506.[5] Kristian Prestrud, "The Eastern Sledge Journey", in Roald Amundsen's The South Pole, ch.15. Note that the date is given as 11th January 1912; see Hinks' note on dates in "The Observations of Amundsen and Scott at the South Pole" (The Geographical Journal, April 1944, p.169).

January 9, 2012

The weather lifted, and the party was able to move on. "RECORD," Scott cheered in his diary at 88° 25', having passed Shackleton's Furthest South, three years to the day earlier. "All is new ahead." [1]

Amundsen

"Same filthy weather," wrote Amundsen on the second day of a storm. "Snow, snow, snow. Snow and snow again. Will it never end." [2]

"Snowdrift and snowfall and I have had a bloody job going first," noted Bjaaland, but despite the drift so bad that they could hardly see, and a temperature of -8° that melted the drift and soaked the sledges, they managed sixteen miles. [3] "The dogs coped splendidly," Amundsen added.

January 8, 2012

"Antarctic Sledging (One of Scott's party prepares for a night away from base)", a painting by Wilson from the Discovery expedition. [1]

The party was tent-bound, stopped by a Force 4-6 wind from the south. "T. -19.8°. Min. for night -25°," wrote Scott.

"It is quite impossible to speak too highly of my companions," he went on. "Each fulfils his office to the party; Wilson, first as doctor, ever on the lookout to alleviate the small pains and troubles incidental to the work, now as cook, quick, careful and dexterous, ever thinking of some fresh expedient to help the camp life; tough as steel on the traces, never wavering from start to finish." [1]

"Evans, a giant worker with a really remarkable headpiece. It is only now I realise how much has been due to him. Our ski shoes and crampons have been absolutely indispensable, and if the original ideas were not his, the details of manufacture and design and the good workmanship are his alone. He is responsible for every sledge, every sledge fitting, tents, sleeping-bags, harness, and when one cannot recall a single expression of dissatisfaction with any one of these items, it shows what an invaluable assistant he has been. Now, besides superintending the putting up of the tent, he thinks out and arranges the packing of the sledge; it is extraordinary how neatly and handily everything is stowed, and how much study has been given to preserving the suppleness and good running qualities of the machine. On the Barrier, before the ponies were killed, he was ever roaming round, correcting faults of stowage."

"Little Bowers remains a marvel -- he is thoroughly enjoying himself. I leave all the provision arrangement in his hands, and at all times he knows exactly how we stand, or how each returning party should fare. It has been a complicated business to redistribute stores at various stages of re-organisation, but not one single mistake has been made. In addition to the stores, he keeps the most thorough and conscientious meteorological record, and to this he now adds the duty of observer and photographer. Nothing comes amiss to him, and no work is too hard. It is a difficulty to get him into the tent; he seems quite oblivious of the cold, and he lies coiled in his bag writing and working out sights long after the others are asleep."

"Of these three it is a matter for thought and congratulation that each is sufficiently suited for his own work, but would not be capable of doing that of the others as well as it is done. Each is invaluable. Oates had his invaluable period with the ponies; now he is a foot slogger and goes hard the whole time, does his share of camp work, and stands the hardship as well as any of us. I would not like to be without him either. So our five people are perhaps as happily selected as it is possible to imagine."

Campbell's Northern Party was landed slightly further northeast of Evans Coves than planned, at a place they called Depot Moraine Camp, later called Hell's Gate. Priestley wrote later, "We had prepared a large depot at Cape Adare which was to have been landed with us here, but it was necessary to sledge all our gear about half a mile over sea ice before it would have been possible to depot it, and as Campbell did not wish to delay the ship, he decided to land only such spare food as could be taken in one journey by ourselves and a sledge party from the ship's crew. In the light of after events this proved to be a grave mistake." [3] Assuming that the ship would pick them up on 18th February as scheduled, Campbell did not feel justified in taking supplies marked down for the main party at Cape Evans.

January 7, 2012

The party depoted their skis and set off walking, but argued over the decision, and eventually Scott was persuaded to turn back and fetch them, losing an hour and a half, and doing only 9 miles for the day."Marching again," he wrote, "I found to my horror we could scarcely move the sledge on ski; the first hour was awful owing to the wretched coating of loose sandy snow. However, we persisted, and towards the latter end of our tiring march we began to make better progress, but the work is still awfully heavy. I must stick to the ski after this." [1]

"Bowers has a heavy time on foot," Scott added, "but nothing seems to tire him. Evans has a nasty cut on his hand (sledge-making). I hope it won't give trouble. Our food continues to amply satisfy. What luck to have hit on such an excellent ration."

Lt. Evans's party had collected their skis from the Three-Degree depot the night before. Crean and Evans were both suffering from snow-blindness in varying degrees. "We have had a very good day as far as travelling goes," Lashly wrote, "the wind has been behind us and is a great help to us. We have been on ski all day for the first time. It seems a good change to footing it, the one thing day after day gets on one's nerves. Crean's eyes are a bit better to-day, but far from being well. The temperature is pretty low, which dont improve the surface for hauling, but we seem to be getting along pretty well. We have no sledge meter so we have to go by guess. Mr. Evans says we done 17 1/2 miles, but I say 16 1/2. I am not going to over-estimate our day's run, as I am taking charge of the biscuits so that we dont over-step the mark. This we have all agreed to so that we should exactly know how we stand." [2]

Amundsen

A gale struck in the afternoon. "Luckily I was wearing my sealskin clothes, which I had left in the depot on the way south," Amundsen noted drily, "and now they were of great use." [3]

They had to steer by compass. "We did not have clear terrain and could not see our hands in front of our faces, so I thought it best to have two forerunners -- Bj[aaland] and Hass[el] roped together. A few hours after starting, we reached some hard, iced ridges, which hinted at the proximity of the huge crevasses we had passed on the way south. At that moment there was a break in the clouds, and not many metres in front of the leading forerunner (Bj.) lay one of the gaping crevasses."

Coming out of the blizzard, they had impenetrable black clouds behind them and blazing sunshine in front, and they found one of their cairns directly in their line of travel. "Not bad steering in the blizzard," Amundsen wrote. They reached the depot at 85° in the evening, gave the dogs double rations, and loaded the fresh supplies on the sledges.

January 6, 2012

"Obstacles arising," Scott wrote, "last night we got amongst sastrugi -- they increased in height this morning and now we are in the midst of a sea of fish-hook waves well remembered from our Northern experience. We took off our ski after the first 1 1/2 hours and pulled on foot. It is terribly heavy in places, and, to add to our trouble, every sastrugus is covered with a beard of sharp, branching crystals. We have covered 6 1/2 miles, but we cannot keep up our average if this sort of surface continues." [1]

Temperatures were around -22°, with a minimum of -25.8 (-32.11 C) in the morning.

Later, he wrote that night, there was a "fearfully hard pull again, and when we had marched about an hour we discovered that a sleeping-bag had fallen off the sledge. We had to go back and carry it on. It cost us over an hour and disorganised our party. We have only covered 10 1/2 miles (geo.) and it's been about the hardest pull we've had. We think of leaving our ski here, mainly because of risk of breakage."

Amundsen

The matches found at Mount Betty in 1929. [2]

Just before midnight, the Norwegians reached their depot under Mount Betty ("-11° 85°9'," Bjaaland noted [3]) . With 35 days' food for men and dogs, and depots all along the way back to Framheim, Amundsen wrote, "[we are] really living among the fleshpots of Egypt. It's just a matter now of eating as much as possible to lighten our sledges as quickly as possible." [4]

Amundsen sent Wisting and Helmer Hanssen up to Mount Betty to build a cairn to mark their presence. They left a message, a 17-litre tin of paraffin, and twenty boxes of matches. (This cairn was found by Admiral Byrd's expedition in 1929.)

One dog, Fridtjof, collapsed and was shot, leaving the party to set off for Framheim with twelve dogs as originally calculated.

January 5, 2012

"A dreadfully trying day," wrote Scott. "Light wind from the N.N.W. bringing detached cloud and constant fall of ice crystals. The surface, in consequence, as bad as could be after the first hour.... The sastrugi seemed to increase as we advanced and they have changed direction from S.W. to S. by W. In the afternoon a good deal of confusing cross sastrugi, and to-night a very rough surface with evidences of hard southerly wind. Luckily the sledge shows no signs of capsizing yet." [1]

"Cooking for five," he added, "takes a seriously longer time than cooking for four; perhaps half an hour on the whole day. It is an item I had not considered when reorganising."

"We go little over a mile and a quarter an hour now.... What lots of things we think of on these monotonous marches! What castles one builds now hopefully that the Pole is ours."

Amundsen

The Axel Heiberg Glacier, looking up towards the Polar Plateau, taken from the air on an unknown date. [2]

Amundsen, not immune to the beauties of his surroundings, stood for a long time before setting off for the day, contemplating the mountains. Above Mount Ole Engelstad, he wrote in his diary, "lay a little cirrus cloud, gold-edged in the morning sun. And over there lies Håkonshallen partly illuminated, partly in the shade. If only I could paint!" [3]

After a stomach-lurching moment when Bjaaland, in front as usual, came abruptly to a stop with the tips of his skis over the edge of the upper ice falls with apparently empty space below, the going was easy. "Loose snow," Amundsen noted, "so that the ski sank about 2 inches: iced and grainy so that the skis glided as if on a greased surface.... We tore down like a rushing wind. A wonderful sport."

"I had many good runs," Bjaaland noted, "and raced with the Captain." [4]

The dog drivers did not have quite so much fun, with their loaded sledges and the dogs sinking to their knees in the loose snow, but they descended the 4,500 feet in eleven and a half miles, to camp where they had done 47 days earlier.

"Thank God we are back in the lowlands," wrote Bjaaland, "and can breathe in a decent way ... after 6 weeks' hard existence in the dry cold air." [5]

January 4, 2012

Here at 87°32'S, Lt. Evans, Crean, and Lashly turned back for Cape Evans. They were less than 150 miles from the Pole. "Teddy Evans is terribly disappointed but has taken it very well and behaved like a man. Poor old Crean wept and even Lashly was affected," Scott wrote. "I was glad to find their sledge is a mere nothing to them, and thus, no doubt, they will make a quick journey back." [1] Wilson was "very sorry for Teddy Evans as he has spent 2 1/2 years in working for a place on this polar journey." [2]

Oates told Evans, "I'm afraid, Teddy, you won't have much of a 'slope' going back, but old Christopher [Oates' pony] is waiting to be eaten on the Barrier when you get there." [3]

Evans carried a number of messages from Scott, to Kathleen, to the press -- "I am remaining in the Antarctic for another winter in order to continue and complete my work" -- and a verbal one to Meares, changing the orders for the dogs, for the fourth time. He wanted Meares to come out with the dogs and meet them between 82° and 83° S some time in the middle of February, in order to hurry the Polar party back in time to catch the ship.

The three men followed the Polar party for a few miles, stopped, gave three cheers, and turned for home.

Bowers found it difficult to keep up with the team, sinking sometimes to his knees in the snow. "It is a long slog with a well-loaded sledge," he wrote, "and more tiring for me than the others, as I have no ski. However, as long as I can do my share all day and keep fit it does not matter much one way or the other." [4]

"At present everything seems to be going with extraordinary smoothness, and one can scarcely believe that obstacles will not present themselves to make our task more difficult." [5]

Lashly wrote that evening, "We travelled a long time so as to make the best of it while the weather was suitable, as we have to keep up a good pace on the food allowance. It wont do [sic] to lay up much. One thing since we left Mt. Darwin, we have had weather we could travel in, although we have not seen the sun much of late. We did 13 miles as near as we can guess by the cairns we have passed. We have not got a sledge meter so shall have to go by guess all the way home." Cherry added here later, "Owing to the loss of a sledge meter on the Beardmore Glacier one of the three parties had to return without one. A sledge meter gives the navigator his dead reckoning, indicating the miles travelled, like the log of a ship. To be deprived of it in a wilderness of snow without landmarks adds enormously to the difficulties and anxieties of a sledge party." [6]

Back at Hut Point, Meares and Dimitri arrived with the dogs.

Amundsen

The Norwegians reached the Butcher's Shop and their depot of dog carcasses.

It was Helmer Hanssen, Amundsen wrote gratefully, "who, with his sharp eyes, discovered [the depot]. Had that not been the case, I don't quite know what would have happened. The place was completely unrecognisable -- just as if we had never seen it before." Their earlier visit had been in fog. "No, to travel blind in these surroundings is fairly dangerous. I thought I recognized the land yesterday, but subsequently it proved to be absolutely wrong." [7]

He also realised that he had "overestimated the heights of the mountains a lot in the misty atmosphere on the southwards journey." He decided, correctly as it turned out, that they were only twelve to thirteen thousand feet, not eighteen to twenty thousand as he had written to King Haakon, and which earlier Bjaaland "had found so damned difficult to believe." [8]

Stopping only long enough to feed the dogs and load the sledges with the meat from the depot, they "shot off, pell mell, down the slopes, the one worse than the other," as Bjaaland put it. The sledges were braked with ropes wound around the runners. They dropped 3,000 feet from the Butcher's Shop to the upper terrace of the Axel Heiberg Glacier in an hour and a half, having done 23 miles for the day. "[We] have our tent in a warm and cosy place where the sun is in the process of melting us," Amundsen wrote. "The dogs are resting contentedly in the sunshine having devoured a huge portion of dog meat plus pemmican.... Well, we are down from the Plateau again, and we are all extremely glad. We have been comfortable there, but we long for the 'Barrier', which is an old friend. Once down there, we count ourselves as good as home. We have got food there all over the place." [9]

About this page

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Amundsen and Scott expeditions to the South Pole.

Scott's route

Amundsen's route

A Note on Dates

When the Fram crossed the International Date Line on the way South, Amundsen did not drop a day from his calendar. The Norwegian diaries from mid-January 1911 to late January 1912 thus were on "Framheim time", dated one day later than they should have been: that is, according to Greenwich Mean Time instead of local time. Amundsen noted this specifically in his entry for the Pole itself, headed "Friday 15 December (really 14th)". No little confusion arises in published sources as a result, and doubtless a number of inconsistencies appear on this page. (See the entry for 10 January 1911 for further information.)

Dates are here adjusted to one day earlier than written in the Norwegian diaries, for entries between 10 January 1911 and late January 1912. Bibliographic citations are as in the published sources.